Jay Wright: Ohio State HC Would Be 'Great Job' But I'm 'Definitely Done Coaching'

Former Villanova men's basketball head coach Jay Wright does not plan to come out of retirement, even for a chance to replace Chris Holtmann at Ohio State.

"It's a great job," Wright said on CBS on Sunday, per Adam Jardy of the Columbus Dispatch. "It has an outstanding athletic department, great tradition and fertile recruiting ground. It would be a great job, but I'm definitely done coaching."

Wright retired as head coach of the Wildcats in 2022.

Ohio State will need to find another candidate to replace Holtmann, who was fired on Feb. 14 during his seventh season with the Buckeyes.

The Buckeyes have had "early feeler talks" with Florida Atlantic head coach Dusty May as a potential replacement, Jardy reported.

Holtmann was bought out when the Buckeyes fell to 14-11 overall after starting the season 12-2. At the time, the Buckeyes were 30-30 since the start of the 2022-23 season.

Overall, Ohio State held a 137-86 record under Holtmann, marking the second-highest win percentage in program history although the team never advanced past the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Wright called Holtmann's firing "a statement on where college athletics are now."

"Chris was doing a good job, doing it the right way, and that's not acceptable anymore," Wright said, per Jardy. "Any program with a coach in his second year would gladly take what Ohio State has right now."

Wright coached Villanova basketball from 2001 to 2022. Under his leadership the Wildcats made four Final Four appearances and won national championships in 2016 and 2018.

Wright, 62, said when announcing his retirement in 2022 that it "was just the right time."

"I started to feel like I didn't have the edge that I've always had, where the edge always came natural to me, so I started evaluating it," Wright said while announcing his retirement (h/t NBC Sports.) "We couldn't ask the players to give 100 percent and I'm giving 70 percent. So I just knew it was the right time, you know?"

Two years later, that apparently hasn't changed. That might be in part because of Wright's current job as an analyst with CBS Sports, which he described in January as "so much fun."